174 THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
Inasmuch as the greater number involves the lesser, the conflicting 
statements coincide as to an attendance of three or four, and:in inter- 
pretation the obligation of silence becomes effective only at this point, 
where the statements cease to coincide. The historian, therefore, in 
interpreting such a discrepancy found in records, would be at liberty 
to state that there was an attendance of three or four; but such a 
liberty can be used to advantage only under especial circumstances, 
and ought never to be made an excuse for interpretative statements 
which are in formal accord with the evidence and yet essentially decep- 
tive. Thus in the case in point, if there were involved in the historian’s 
theme an interest for the reader in establishing an attendance of at 
least three or four, not only would a statement by the historian that 
there was an attendance of at least that number be acceptable in that 
form to the reader, but the reader himself, if he subsequently had 
access to the original records, would approve of the historian’s inter- 
pretation of the discrepancy as just and proper. Apart, however, from 
such an interest in establishing a minimum attendance, a statement by 
the historian in the above form would arouse in the reader an unsatisfied 
curiosity, and corresponding vexation, concerning the reason for the 
qualifying words “at least”; while, on the contrary, if the historian 
omitted these qualifying words, the reader, if he subsequently had 
access to the original records, would feel that the historian’s interpreta- 
tion of the discrepancy was in formal accord with the evidence and yet 
essentially deceptive and improper, because, with respect to the total 
attendance, there was as good authority forplacing the number at several 
hundred as at only three or four. 
